Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(5)

Honey jogged to her room, threw her book bag into the corner, and quickly changed her clothes, opting for overalls that ended in a skirt instead of pant legs. She paired it with a white tank top and her beat-up Converse. Damn, she needed to think about a new pair of shoes soon. Maybe it was time to think about getting some waitressing shifts to ease the strain on her parents. Little things like shoes could shoot their whole budget to hell. She’d had an amazing stroke of luck finding this apartment and Abby, who only charged them two hundred dollars for rent, but she needed to remember how tight money was back home. Everything that had been sacrificed so she could be here. Living her dreams.

Her throat feeling a little tight, Honey ran a brush through her hair and left the room, locking it behind her. Didn’t want anyone getting busy on her grandma’s afghan.

As soon as she walked into the kitchen, Louis waved her over. He was standing with another guy. A tall guy with a shaved head. He was attractive in a rugged, works-with-his-hands kind of way. Kind of. . . . dangerous looking. The exact opposite of who she would expect lawyerly Louis to hang out with. Then Abby joined them, and shaved head’s entire demeanor softened, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he shifted back and forth in his work boots. Honey almost laughed out loud. This giant man was clearly infatuated with Abby. And Abby clearly had zero clue. She had to meet this guy.

Louis put a friendly hand on Honey’s shoulder. “Honey, this is my boy, Russell. We met because of beer.” Russell shook her hand with a half smile and went back to watching Abby.

Honey nudged Abby. “You’ve already met Russell?”

“Yes,” she confirmed with a precise nod. “When Russell and Ben came to yell at Roxy for making Louis sad. You weren’t there to witness the fireworks.”

“Oh.” Honey felt a flutter in her throat just hearing the name Ben. Even if it wasn’t attached to her Ben. Her Ben? When had she started thinking of him that way? Maybe when he looked at her like he wanted to devour her. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“It wasn’t pretty.” Russell’s voice sounded like thunder rumbling. “She would have gone back to him eventually. We just gave her a nudge.”

Louis looked lost in his thoughts for a moment. “Yeah, well. I guess you’re good for something. Speaking of Ben, where is he? He always shows up exactly on time.”

“On his way. He got caught up at some meeting.”

Louis checked his phone again, obviously restless for Roxy to show up. He scanned the room, gaze landing on everything in one swoop. “We need more chairs. Would you mind running downstairs and grabbing some out of the super’s closet, Russell? He told me we could borrow a few fold-up ones for the night.”

“Sure thing,” Russell said, looking around for a place to set down his beer. When Abby took it from him, he smiled like she’d just crowned him king of England.

“You know what? I’ll go,” Honey volunteered. It seemed like a shame to pull Russell away from Abby. Not to mention, she wanted to be useful, since Abby and Louis had set up the whole party without her help. Growing up on a farm had instilled an almost obsessive need to pull her own weight, whether it was cooking for her roommates or lugging shit up three flights of stairs. Russell and Louis started to protest, but she cut them off. “I might be small, but I’m tough. Be right back.”

She skirted past a group of guys in various styles of plaid and dipped out of the apartment. After peeking down the hall to make sure Roxy wasn’t coming, lest she ruin the surprise, she skipped down the stairs to the first floor, letting her mind drift back to her literary theory class that afternoon. Either she’d been breathing too many fumes in the lab and had become delusional, or she and Ben had shared a . . . moment. She hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected him to react to her. She’d expected him to maintain his careful detachment to anyone and everything apart from his lecture, the material. Just like always. Instead, he’d looked at her as if he’d recognized her. Then . . . oh then, he’d let his mask slip, and there’d just been heat. Heat everywhere, licking over her skin and dragging her toward him. The way he’d made her feel shouldn’t be felt in a lecture hall, surrounded by a hundred students. It should only be felt in the bedroom or the shower . . . or in a field under the moon.

All right, now she just sounded ridiculous. She could no more picture the professor lying under a Kentucky moon than she could picture him in jeans and a T-shirt. No, if she succeeded in seducing him, he would probably keep on his tweed jacket and glasses the whole time they got it on. He’d probably quote Salinger when he came, instead of giving a good old-fashioned moan. Which was fine with her. Oh mama, was it fine with her.

Honey reached the super’s supply closet and found that he’d left it propped open with a block of wood. “So helpful,” she murmured, making a mental note to bake Rodrigo some brownies to say thank you. The kind with walnuts and frosting on top. Humming to herself, she reached over to flick the light switch. Nothing happened. “Looks like I’ll be operating in the dark.”

BEN WAS LATE by five minutes. It really shouldn’t matter, five minutes. Three hundred seconds. It wasn’t even enough time to boil an egg. But it did matter. It mattered because he’d been thrown off his game already today and it had now carried over into his evening. He hadn’t finished grading papers on time because of his fascination with the faceless Ms. Perribow’s work, which he’d read twice more on the subway ride to Chelsea, bringing the grand total to nine. Nine times. And yet if he was honest with himself, he’d read it again to distract himself from thoughts of the blonde. His Lolita. Granted, she was clearly past the age of consent, unlike the character he’d secretly named her after in his mind, but as a sophomore, she couldn’t be more than nineteen. Twenty, tops. Young. Way too young.